Manually Record Session Playbacks

Brief Overview

Once Session Playback collection is enabled, WalkMe Insights automatically records user sessions and converts them into replayable recreations called Session Playbacks.

If too many of your limited Session Playbacks are being used to record sessions you don't need, you can control when recording starts using the Session Playback Recording Manually setting and a client-side API call.

This setting changes the default collection mode from Session Playback to Digital Experience Analytics (DXA), so user interactions continue to be collected but sessions are not recreated for playback until explicitly started via the API.

Use Cases

Use manual recording when you want to:

• Record only specific user sessions or behaviors
• Conserve limited Session Playback quotas
• Capture targeted flows such as onboarding, checkout, or form completion

Configure Session Playback Recording Manually

Access the setting

1. Log in to Insights at insights.walkme.com
2. Go to the environment of your choice and click Environment Settings
3. Open the Session Playback tab
4. Turn on Start Session Playback Recording Manually
5. Select Save Settings

Once this option is enabled, all sessions default to DXA mode until you trigger playback recording manually.

Start recording manually

To switch the current session from DXA mode to Session Playback mode, call the following function on the client side:

WalkMeInsightsAPI.startPlaybackRecording()

This command begins capturing a user session as a Session Playback recording.

Ensure the API call executes only after Insights has fully loaded. Use the callback below to confirm readiness:

window.onWalkMeInsightsAPIReady = function() {
// Safe to call API here
WalkMeInsightsAPI.startPlaybackRecording()
}

Stop recording manually

To end a recording within the same session, call:

WalkMeInsightsAPI.stopRecording()

Client-Side Implementation Examples

Start recording when a user clicks a specific element

$( "#target" ).click(function() {
WalkMeInsightsAPI.startPlaybackRecording()
});

Start recording when a user visits a specific URL

//This code must appear before the WalkMe snippet
window.onWalkMeInsightsAPIReady = function() {
if(window.location.href === "http://example.com/home"){
WalkMeInsightsAPI.startPlaybackRecording()
}
}

Record only admin users

////This code must appear before the WalkMe snippet
window.onWalkMeInsightsAPIReady = function() {
if(myUser.role.toLowerCase() === "admin"){
WalkMeInsightsAPI.startPlaybackRecording()
}
}

Technical Notes

• Once the client-side API is called, the current session counts as a Session Playback session
• Multiple API calls within the same session still count as a single playback session
• Once a session is recorded in Session Playback mode, it cannot revert to DXA mode
• Sections of a session recorded in DXA will not support Session Playback, but their event data remains collected
• After calling WalkMeInsightsAPI.startPlaybackRecording(), the rest of the session will be fully replayable